


It Never Rains in Belgrade

by itsaquinnquinnsituation



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsaquinnquinnsituation/pseuds/itsaquinnquinnsituation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lazy snippet of a fairy-tale which could have happened in real life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Never Rains in Belgrade

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction and none of the characters, based off real people or otherwise, are mine. I am not making money off my work. I do not mean to insult anyone.
> 
> This is my universe and exactly how I see it. Writing should be enjoyed, not judged.
> 
> This piece has been sitting in my head and making me smile for about a month. I thought I'd share it with you folks and maybe it will make you smile as well...

It's one of those gorgeous lazy Saturday mornings in early June when the air is completely still and, though the sky is splattered here and there with grayish-white clouds, the sun is shining hospitably in a patch of blue sky. He hears the locals’ quiet sleepy breakfast conversations, their windows open to allow the smell of the blooming flowers of all kinds to mix with that of berry pancakes and fresh coffee. Apart from a bird call, rare and unrequited, there are no other sounds to be heard in this secluded suburban corner of Belgrade.

“Eh!” – He hears suddenly from above. Ah, right, here goes that one again.

It’s been about a couple of months since he’s moved to Belgrade and every Saturday, up early as he usually is for his work, he makes his way to the nearby pastry shop. The usual route takes him past a couple of old stone buildings, and in the large second floor window of one of them, sits a young lanky lad. He sits there every Saturday (maybe other days too - Louis wouldn’t know that) between ten and ten-thirty in the morning, by now a part of the scenery in Louis’ mind, ripped black skinny jeans and brown boots, dark shirt over a light tank top. 

So, there he is again, stretched on the windowsill, wavy brown hair combed back, dangling one of his slender long legs along the side of the building as though he’s really sitting on a bench and not twelve feet above the effaced pavement of a narrow one-way. And again, he is talking to Louis. He’s just as cheerful as all those other times that Louis walked by, there, then back, with a bag of warm scones or rolls; he’s watched Louis every time, unabashedly and languidly, like a young cat watching a bird just after he’s had two cans of tuna and a bowl of milk. He's taken his time letting Louis come close before he yelled out and Louis does not stop as the lad goes on talking, asking, but Louis does remember to bow down his head so the lad would not see how his cheeks promptly begin to glow; then coming back from the pastry shop, he knows he would struggle even more as the whole time he’d be moving past the solid stone building with elaborate ornamented windows and rose bushes planted alongside its perimeter, the human cat in the second floor window would be devouring his face leisurely with a smirk hiding in his mischievous alluring green eyes…

So, Louis just walks on and he can feel those devilish eyes burn a hole in his back and he curses everything in the world, chastises himself for not taking a different path, promising himself that he would do it on the way back and trying desperately to banish the voice of reason, reminding him of all the other times he’s followed the exact same train of thought and all of the times that he’s failed. In his mind, he is sure that lad in the windowsill is just as irresistible as that mug of irish-cream coffee that Louis has seen him enjoy a couple of times, and Louis curses his fate for being so cruel.

As he buys a few Danish pastries from a smiley old baker, pointing with his finger, nodding with his head and managing an awkward “Хвала!”, he thinks of what would happen if it rained one of these mornings. Would the lad still be sitting there in the window? Would he, Louis, be walking by to the shop, hiding his face under an umbrella? Or would he stay at home, watching the drops fall on the juicy green leaves and disappear in the colourful petals of flowers, thinking of whether the lad in the window is waiting for him to walk by? It’s funny maybe, but in the two months that he’s lived here, it hasn’t rained once. Maybe it never rains in Belgrade. Maybe it doesn’t rain because the weather, too, wants to torture him. The weather, the small quiet street, the rose bushes, the lazy June sun and the lanky lad in the second-floor window have all conspired against him. But his biggest enemy has always been and will always remain the same - human nature…

Louis walks on until his heart does a few somersaults prompting him to raise his head even as he’s already realized what’s the matter and there he is, legs stretched out and crossed, looking straight at him, smiling, sipping his irish cream from a blue polka-dot mug. Louis trips awkwardly and the lad giggles in such a kind and gentle manner that Louis swallows, blinking vigorously, ready to run for his dear sweet life. Then the lad starts talking to him again. 

And it really doesn’t matter, and he can really keep on walking, but the smell of flowers, of coffee and bread and a new, some kind of a fresh earthy smell are so overwhelming that the world starts to spin and Louis stands still instead, raising his head and closing his eyes, stammering, he starts his jumbled, hasty reply:

“Sorry” – he says and winces, - “Sorry, I’m British… English, you know?” – Noticing the lad’s tilted head he slows down and gestures, - “English. You know? England. Ja ne govorim srpski” – observing the lad’s wide eyes, he continues, - “It’s embarrassing really, I know, I’ve been here for two months and haven’t learnt as much as one sentence. I can’t even ask you your name… which I would, I really would, and I’d tell you mine, which is Louis… and really, I’d invite you over for a cup of tea… or rather irish cream, since you like it so much, and I’d love it too I think, if you’d bother to make it, and, I’d happily share some of these scones which I buy there just around the corner, and I think I’d really love to do that rather than spend my Saturdays sitting alone, staring out the window, wishing that it wasn’t on the ground floor so I can also be twelve feet closer to the sky…”

The lad's eyebrows have gone up, but he keeps smiling with the same gentle smile and Louis nods and smiles back, ready to keep going on his merry way, mentally saying goodbye to these bittersweet mornings, his daydreams and fantasies and the excruciating weeklong waits between the Saturdays – although no, those latter ones would never so much as attempt to desist…

Just as he’s about to take his first step on the path of never-again though, the lad opens his mouth. Tilting his head the other way and frowning just barely, a smile mercilessly tugging at the corners of his lips, the lad proceeds in a perfect Queen’s English:

“So why the hell did you wait for two months to tell me you’re not Serbian, Louis?”

Louis gazes at him, mouth hanging open as the lad leans forward, as though he is about to jump out of the window:

“And was it really necessary to let me make a fool of myself in front of dozens of neighbours as I kept asking you, week after week, to come up and let me make you some irish cream?”

Louis blinks at him as the lad full on laughs, placing his coffee cup aside:

“Well lucky you, I am not the kind to give up! And look” – he stretches his arm out and catches a few of the raindrops which are now starting to shimmer in the air, infused with gentle sunlight and bits and pieces of rainbow, - “I think it’s going to rain. So…” – he smiles at Louis, who only now manages to collect his jaw off the scuffed up asphalt, - “I guess, you better come in.”


End file.
